Chapter Text
As soon as she regained consciousness, panic seized Tara’s heart in its vicious claw, digging into the muscle, tearing holes in the flesh. From those invisible wounds it seemed as if fear trickled down quietly, like icy water threatening to flood her lungs. Tara gasped painfully, some strange ache pounding relentlessly throughout her upper body. Her ears still buzzed with the deafening sound of an explosion – no, not one; it was five, five gunshots – and she couldn’t feel her legs.
Where on Earth was she?
A blinding light burned her retinas and she shot her eyes closed, ignoring the pressing question budding inside – that urge to seek answers. An unruly need to know where she was, and what had happened to her; as urgent as those interrogations were, she had more important matters at hand.
Like remembering how to breathe.
Terrified and confused, Tara willed herself to overcome the shock that immobilized her, and drew in another breath. Although the movement caused the same amount of pain as it had the first time around, it seemed lessened, somehow; perhaps because this time, she had expected the agonizing ache. Unwillingly shedding tears, Tara exhaled slowly, her raw throat protesting the abuse with a shallow cough that sent ripples of ache along her ribs.
One by one, her most recent memories returned to her mind, but they were hazy, unfocused. Sunlight peeking through the curtains; Willow’s smile, just as bright. Red drops splashing on her white shirt, red beads of – Tara’s blood –
– A bullet.
Not a spell, or a sword, or the sadistic hand of a goddess – no, what had ran through her and tore her chest open had been this tiny, trivial piece of metal.
One small bullet – how did it hurt so much?
But if there was one thing that Tara had learned early in life, it was how to cope with pain. She pushed past the temptation of bursting into sobs and opened her eyelids again, slow and careful this time.
Slightly dimmed by the water in her eyes, the intense light was almost welcomed. Even though she couldn’t see very far, Tara realised that she was outside, lying down on the grass. As she grasped the new information it seemed her other senses kicked in, nearly overwhelming her. Suddenly she could smell the strong scent of nearby flowers, and feel the blades of grass stubbornly prickling her neck and forearms. A bitter and metallic taste rested at the back of her mouth.
Had she been moved to the front yard? Where was Willow?
No matter how she tried, however, Tara couldn’t hear anything around her. She doubted that her surroundings were silent; with the way her eardrums throbbed angrily, she guessed something had deafened her when she had been injured. After a few more pained breaths some noises reached her, but muffled, like she was deep underwater.
Her muscles protested when she willed her hands to move, examining her chest only to find no bandages, blood or wounds. The thought of internal bleeding caused her stomach to turn over, her earlier queasiness returning in full force. It was wrong, everything was off – she wasn’t supposed to be here.
If she had been hurt, Tara should have woken up in Sunnydale’s hospital, with Willow’s hand wrapped tightly around hers. Dawn would have fallen asleep on a chair beside her bed, one of Buffy’s leather jackets rolled into a pillow at the crook of her neck. Leaning against the doorframe Buffy would gaze at her with an odd mix of concern and pride, and while she’d stay silent Xander would crack a joke. Something about the lack of bulletproof protection spells or maybe some obscure reference to a comic book Tara would have never even heard of before.
And everything would be alright.
And Tara wouldn’t be alone.
With that thought, the claw around her heart tightened its grip, its pointy fingers so cold that it burned. For one split second, Tara wanted nothing more than to let it consume her whole, to close her eyes again and allow herself to sink back into the darkness.
To fade away, and forget about this strange meadow, about the bullet that had wreaked havoc inside her chest; she wished she wouldn’t remember that morning and the way the light caught Willow’s red curls or how Dawn’s voice had warmed up in joy, an effortless glee that Tara hadn’t heard in a long time.
Not even once, ever since Joyce had left...
And now Tara had gone too. Been sent here, to this other realm, and why?
The word carved through her mind like lightning, echoing loudly all throughout the rest of her body, as if thunder. No.
Although her lips couldn’t quite push out the sound, Tara repeated it over and over again as she struggled to push herself off the ground. She wouldn’t do that to Dawn – she wouldn’t abandon her.
Tara would live, and she would fight, and she would find her way home.
If she could only get herself to stand up.
Two or three hours must have passed as she lied there in the middle of the meadow, patiently regaining control of her limbs. Tara had no way to tell exactly how long she had been there; dark grey clouds sealed the sky above her head, a curtain so thick that she wondered how light could even reach the ground where she now stood. It didn’t matter, anyway; somehow, Tara had travelled to another realm of existence, which meant it had its own set of rules she would know nothing about.
If the immobile darkened sky hadn’t already given that away, the golden glimmer around the surrounding trees made it impossible to doubt. Everything else had faded colours, as if the world itself was exhausted, washed out. It was eerie, but not threatening.
The pain in her chest had faded to a dull ache, and she hadn’t found any physical injury related to it; only a small red scar shaped like a cross. Tara had shivered when she had dragged her index over it, not daring to ponder too long on how it had gotten there.
It wasn’t important, anyway – she had to focus on her goal, and find a way to travel back to where she belonged.
She only wished she would have had time to grab a few supplies with her before leaving Sunnydale; not that it had been her choice to travel here in the first place. She absently wondered who would ever want to get rid of her. Maybe she had been caught in crossfire? But it had been such a lovely morning... She shook her head. How she had gotten to this world didn’t matter now; she had to focus on the present. Tara made a mental inventory of her possessions; wearing a pair of jeans and a blue sweater, she also had a pack of gum of no socks. All of it could offer very little protection if she met harsher conditions.
Fortunately for her, so far the weather in this world had been rather kind. From time to time a soft breeze blew over the trees, although the clouds above her head hadn’t moved one bit. The absence of wildlife – there hadn’t been even a single insect ever since she had woken up – worried her slightly, but then again she hoped it was only a matter of luck.
Not that she had a lot of that in the past.
Now that she was able to stand without her knees giving in, Tara could study her surroundings a little more. Up ahead, between two large lilac bushes, a narrow trail ventured into the forest – she settled on exploring it first. With every step, the pain in her chest flickered, sparks of ache that would eventually dull out. Or at least, she expected it would, over time.
It didn’t take long for Tara to reach the limits of the woods, the trees around her getting scarce. In the near distance, straight ahead, she could see a column of black smoke, almost unwavering as it reached the sky. A village or a camp, perhaps – but she still didn’t hear voices – or any kind of noise, for that matter. Yet her resolve strengthened at the sight, and she walked a little faster, ignoring the protestations of her muscles and articulations.
The closer she got, the more her pulse quickened. It felt oddly reassuring now, the constant ticking of her heart – a reminder that somehow, she was still alive. She would return to her family, to her home. She had to.
There was hope; after all, they had brought Buffy back from worse, hadn’t they?
Tara set the thought aside as it reminded her of all it had cost them, to resurrect Buffy. Of how it had shattered everything in their world, had cracked the foundations under their feet. She wouldn’t let that happen with her; she would be cautious, and would find a safe passage between the realms.
She was in a mystical land after all, wasn’t she? There had to be something, somewhere, that she could use. She only had to look.
“Dani, if you don’t climb down that tree right now I’m leaving you here,” a man shouted in the distance, startling Tara.
Scanning the land ahead to find the source of the sound, Tara noticed a tiny silhouette hunched over a branch, a little further downhill. A high-pitched voice – Dani’s, perhaps – replied in an enthusiastic mixture of laughter and incomprehensible screams. Just as Tara stepped closer, the child disappeared from her sight. Tara frowned as she reached the cherry tree, searching for the first sign of life she had encountered in hours.
Nothing. Not even footsteps on the ground or heavy breathing.
Tara shook her head, now convinced that she had imagined both the man’s voice and the kid’s. She turned around and a little girl popped out of a bush in front of her, eyes gleaming with mischief. In her right palm she held about a dozen of small berries, the fruits bright, round and red. Air rushed out of Tara’s lungs as it reminded her of beads of blood, but as she blinked the vision faded from her mind.
“A gift for the princess,” Dani grinned.
A couple of leaves had gotten stuck in her messy black curls, and under her left eye Tara could see the faint line of a star-shaped scar.
Dani’s smile faltered as she lifted her hand a little higher. “You can’t say no to a gift,” she explained, pouting.
Shivering, the pain in Tara’s chest started to burn again, and she could feel tears of sweat running down her spine. She opened her mouth to answer – maybe to ask what those fruits were – but couldn’t find her voice.
A man, the girl’s father Tara deduced, reached them with a frown on his face. Tall and muscular, he somehow reminded Tara of Riley Finn. But where Riley’s eyes had always softened in kindness, this man looked cold, his sharp jaw clenching at the sight of Tara.
“Daddy I found a princess,” Dani squealed with joy when she saw him approaching, immediately running up to him with little notice to his angered expression.
It took a few seconds for Tara to realise that Dani’s scrubby little finger was pointing at her.
The father’s gaze turned weary, but curious as he scrutinised her from head to toes. “That, you did,” he noted, glancing at his daughter before he swooped her off the ground. “Come here.”
Tara took in a deep breath to try speaking again, but the perfume of the nearby white lilacs was suddenly dizzying. Her eyes blurred and no amount of blinking seemed to fix it as her body ran hot and cold, her knees weakening yet again.
“You alright miss?” the father asked, concern etched all over his face.
Somehow, Tara couldn’t stop thinking that all she needed was to breathe some fresh air, which was perhaps ridiculous since she was quite obviously outdoors. But she needed out. Out of those woods and away from those bushes of lilacs – white lilacs with red berries, no that wasn’t right. She had to leave, to find a village or a camp; a place somewhere, anywhere, to sit down and think.
But she couldn’t.
“I think she can’t speak,” Dani informed her father, still smiling even as she shoved a handful of berries in her mouth.
Maybe Tara had to try communicating something simpler; her name maybe? Yet the words wouldn’t come. She could mouth the phrase, could feel her tongue pushing out the air, but no sound would leave her lips.
She thought of the Gentlemen and tears gathered in her eyes.
The man walked a little closer, his daughter still tucked in his arms. “Do you need help? Are you hurt?”
And just like that, all of Tara’s strength, all her resolve, it washed out of her like a river breaking a dam, wild and unstoppable. Her cheeks burned up as her vision shadowed, and the darkness returned then, as cold and unforgiving as it had been before.
She couldn’t smell the lilacs anymore. No, now the air felt crisp, dry and still. The flowery scent had been replaced by a desiccated odor that seemed familiar, but Tara couldn’t place it. It tugged at the back of her mind, a quiet warning to move, and yet she couldn’t find the strength.
Fire.
Something was burning. She had to stand up, had to get to safety-
Or she could stay here, and wait, and die.
A strange uplifting sensation rolled inside her chest at the thought, an insane energy that rustled under her sternum until she allowed it to curl her lips into a smile. But that only cracked her up and what started as a quiet giggle rapidly turned into an uncontrollable laughter that brought water to her eyes.
She could die, could she?
Or was this hell already?
Struggling to sit upright, Tara barely noticed the thin mattress between her and the wooden floor, or even the erected walls of the cabin she had woken in. More than that, she couldn’t see Dani and her father standing just a few meters apart, staring at her with concern. All Tara could distinguish were blurry and silent silhouettes, while tears rushed down her cheeks in rivers.
Only the wildfire of pain in her chest stopped her from completely losing her mind in that moment, as an anchor bringing her back to port despite the storm that raged inside. Tara choked on her crazed laughter as it turned into a sob, and hid her face into her hands.
This couldn’t be happening.
She was in Sunnydale, sleeping in her apartment near the campus, and this was simply a nightmare. Or she was with Willow, in those impossibly warm sheets, both of them dead to the world, content on being together again. If she only opened her eyes again, Tara would see.
But when she slowly removing her palms from over her face, Tara found Dani kneeling in front of her, her previous grin turned into a curious expression.
“Miss, are you crazy?” she politely asked and her father let out a sharp, disapproving “Dani!”
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Tara tried a weak reassuring smile. “I don’t think so,” she whispered, her voice strained, throat still burning.
“Leave the poor woman alone,” the father ordered. Blinking, Tara finally managed to see him, stirring a pot over a fireplace.
This was their home, she realised as he grabbed three wooden bowls from a nearby cabinet. Tara tried not to wince as he served what looked like dinner – a brown concoction that smelled like bacon. Her stomach turned over at the scent, and as she breathed down deeply to quiet it down, Tara realised she wasn’t hungry.
She wondered if it was the exhaustion, the pain, or because of what had happened to her. It seemed wrong, though – she had been starving before, when she was with Willow. She had been meaning to bake some more pancakes for Buffy, Dawn, Willow and her. And Xander, she remembered – Xander was there, too.
But none of them were here now, and the thought of pancakes only brought the tears back in her eyes.
The sound of one the bowls landing on the table snapped Tara back in the present. As Dani quickly shuffled back to her feet, taking her seat on one of the chairs, Tara ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the curls. Slurping noises made her flinch, and yet when Tara caught the father rolling his eyes at his child, comfortable warmth settled in her guts.
“Here, this’ll bring back some colours to your cheeks,” he offered her a ration of soup, smiling at her gently.
With her back resting against the wall, Tara let out a breath and shook her head. Somehow, the more she stayed in this world, the more it became impossible to ignore. This truth bursting inside, it was bludgeoning its way through her chest. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she admitted, the words choking up her throat.
She couldn’t bring herself to face it just yet, but she had to.
Everything pointed to that.
The man frowned as he kneeled in front of her. “Why’s that?”
The gunshot, this strange world, the lack of hunger... Tara knew.
“I think,” she glanced at the child and lowered her voice. It wasn’t something a kid should hear, not even something Tara should be saying, really. “I think I’m dead.”
His eyes softened as his hand fell on her shoulder. It weighed heavy, but Tara felt lighter than before. As if the confession had relieved her from all this pain inside.
“Oh, dear,” he sighed, his empathic gaze nearly burning as it fell on Tara’s face. “Here, we all are.”